John Two Guns White Calf (also known as John Two Guns and John Whitecalf Two Guns[1]) (1872–1934[2][3]) was a chief of the Piegan BlackfeetinMontana. He was born near Fort Benton, Montana, and was the adopted son of Chief White Calf.[1] After the elder White Calf died in 1903, while a guest of President T. Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., White Calf became the last chief of the Blackfoot Tribe.[2] He died at Blackfeet Indian hospital, of attack of flu according to the Choteau Acantha, however the Indian agency said pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 63 and is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Browning, Montana.[2][1]
He became famous for his work promoting the Glacier National Park for the Great Northern Railway.[1][2][4]: 222 In 1912, he travelled with several other Blackfeet to the 1912 United States Land Show in Chicago to make what was possibly the first publicity trip for the tribe.[5] He also claimed to be the model for the profile on the Indian head nickel. The sculptor, James Earle Fraser, said that the image he used was a composite of several people.[1]: 141 [6]
In 1971, Walter Wetzel, a Blackfeet tribal council member, created the Washington Redskins logo.[7][8][9] He used Two Guns White Calf's image as the basis for the logo. Concerns caused the team to change the logo in 2020.[10][8] The team officially changed their name to The Washington Commanders in 2022.[11]
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As it happens, the Washington Redskin logo was based on an image of Blackfoot Chief John Two Guns White Calf (1872–1934). The complaint, of course, is that 'retiring' the logo and its identity means erasing John White Calf from history. And his image was not picked at random to be a token Indian. John White Calf was a public personality and a friend of Calvin Coolidge, who, of course, frequently vacationed in South Dakota and knew the West.
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